“Dear Sir.—Though I am
flattered by your attention, and must acknowledge that you have touched upon my
hobbyhorse, yet I am sorry that your politeness led you to give yourself a
moment’s trouble for the sake of gratifying the silly impatience of your
humble servant. I owe you a thousand apologies for not having answered your
letter of a fortnight since; but the fact is I wrote to you and another
gentleman, immediately after my arrival, by the same post, and was answered by
said gentleman that I was a man of leisure and could write letters; he was
engaged in active life, and could not. No man is less willing to

54

WILLIAM GODWIN

be guilty of the sin of intrusion than I am: I therefore
took this rebuff in dudgeon, and forswore the writing of any letters but of
mere business for a fortnight. Will you accept this apology? If you do, in
gratitude I will damn you, and say you have more good-nature than wit.

“If you did but properly reflect upon my desolate
situation, banished from human society, and condemned to eat grass with the
beasts, you surely would not tantalize me with the visit of a day. But be it as
it will, for I can adapt to myself the words of Addison with true Addisonian fire, and say—

“‘A day, an hour, of intellectual talk

Is worth a whole eternity of solitude.’

Only upon this occasion keep the reins in your own hands, and do not
fetter yourself too much with domestic stipulations before you set out.

“Sir, had you remembered the letter of the Chinese
Mandarin, which had no other address than ‘Dr
Boerhaave, Europe,’ you surely would not have insulted me
with the supposition that I must borrow lustre from a petty upholsterer in such
a town as Guildford, and not be seen by own radiance. I would have you to know
that I am as much of a poet as either Dr Boerhaave, or
even Van Swieten, his commentator. Nay,
if you provoke me, I do not know but I shall enter the lists with Mynheer Van Haaren, the Homer of the whole Dutch nation.

George Robinson (1736-1801)
London bookseller who published the Critical Review (from 1774)
and the Town and Country Magazine.

Gerard, freiherr van Swieten (1700-1772)
A pupil of Hermann Boerhaave, he was physician to the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa and
the founder of the first Vienna medical school.

Lord John Townshend (1757-1833)
The son of George Townshend, first Marquess Townshend; he was educated at Eton and St
John's College, Cambridge and was a Whig MP for Cambridge, Westminster, and Knaresborough.
He was a denizen of Holland House and Sheridan's literary executor.